


Lily of the Valley

by trash_devil



Category: Mononoke
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage, Origin Story, Pre Canon, nonbinary!Medicine Seller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 08:16:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18257363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_devil/pseuds/trash_devil
Summary: "Lily of the valley. Beautiful and deadly,” the man murmurs. “So you shall be.”The youth closes their eyes. “Yes.”





	Lily of the Valley

This is the story of a boy- _(No.)_ A girl- _(No.)_ A human- _(Closer, but not quite.)_

This is the story of a child. _(For now that will do.)_ It is raining.   
The child wipes their face on their sleeve, even though the fabric is neither cleaner nor drier than any other part of them.

A woman approaches.

“What’s your name?” asks the woman.

“My name?” asks the child.

“Your name,” she affirms.

“I have none.”

“You must have a name. All people have names.”

The child shakes their head. “I am not ‘people.’”

“But they must call you something.”

Silence.

 _“Karayuki-san!”_ calls a voice from the house.  
The child stands on their bare feet and hurries back inside.

Prostitute. That young?  
 _(Debts must be paid somehow.)_

The woman shakes her head sadly. The world is full of sad truths. She does not have time to linger on that poor child’s fate; she has a business to run. 

 

\--------------------------------------------------

 

As much as she wants to leave it alone, the issue of the child does not respect her wishes.  
 _(Few things in this world do.)_

The little bell on the door jingles and jangles. Wet feet patter against the tatami.

The woman looks up.

The child looks back.

“Medicine,” they say, holding out their hand. Coins clink-clink on the table. 

“For what?”

“Fever.”

The woman picks up the coins, scours the shelves, and hands the child a little packet, tied with string. 

“Two cups a day.”

“Tea?”

“Tea.”

The child nods solemnly and goes back out into the rain.

Time passes. The child visits time and time again, for herbs and incense and colorful little medicines. 

 

\--------------------------------------------------

 

The woman teaches them the names of the cures, the poisons they can become, ways to diagnose and heal. She watches them grow into a willowy young thing.

First and foremost, they belong to their master, but she also feels that in some way they are hers. She draws out the visits as long as she can with bits and pieces of information.

They listen. Their eyes are the color of stormclouds- _(Almost. Bluer.)_

Their eyes are the color of the bruises that blot their pale skin like inkstains.  
 _(Perfect.)_

“Did he hurt you again?” she asks.

“I wonder,” they say with a smile.

She huffs a sigh of motherly frustration. “You never tell me anything. I only want to help.”

The smile spreads, just a little. “I wonder.”

“Don’t ‘I wonder,’ me.” The woman disappears from sight as she rattles around behind the counter. “Now, what did you need, again?”

“Incense.”

Her head pops up so that she can roll her eyes at them. “I meant what kind.”

“The fancy kind.”

She vanishes with another sigh and a muttered complaint of, “Of course.”

Her customer wanders the shop, dragging their pale fingers along the shelves. They whisper the names as they go.

“How about this?” the woman asks.

They murmur their assent without looking. 

“I’ll put it on your master’s tab.”

And that, quite simply, is that.

 

\--------------------------------------------------

 

It rains again. The child- _(Not a child any longer, but nowhere near adult either.)_ The youth- _(That will do.)_ sits out on the steps, sore and bitter and sorrowful. 

They hate. It bubbles, overflows, a thick black ooze that clogs their mouth and veins.

When they look down, they are unsurprised to see a dark hand holding theirs.

The man- _(Is he? For now, yes. For simplicity’s sake.)_ smiles joylessly. His teeth are sharp. Gold lines his features like a spiderwebbing of cracks.

“This will be the last time,” the man whispers.

The youth nods. 

He squeezes their hand. “He will regret ever having laid a finger on you.”

“Yes.”

 

\--------------------------------------------------

 

There is blood drying under their fingernails from where they clawed out his throat. Their arms are sore from holding their master down. But they are smiling, smiling, smiling, looking over the mangled corpse. 

“Yes,” they say.

The man, all darkness and gold, chuckles. He tucks a flower behind their ear, brushes the hair from their face and ties it back. 

“Lily of the valley. Beautiful and deadly,” the man murmurs. “So you shall be.”

The youth closes their eyes. “Yes.”

 

\--------------------------------------------------

 

They gather the silken robes of their master. They paint their face, dance across the tatami in a swirl of colored cloth.

“Am I pretty?” they ask, and laugh.

The man laughs with them, “Of course.”

_(It does not matter what they wear. They are gorgeous, whether dressed in finery or only in their own drying blood, broken on the floor. It does not matter.)_

Hand in hand, they walk into the night.

 

\--------------------------------------------------

 

This is a place they know well. 

The man slides a sword into their hand, presses his lips to their ear to breathe the words, “We still have work to do.”

“Why her?”

“Why anything?”

“I wonder.”

And the blade flashes in the dark. The apothecary woman gasps. Blood sprays, pretty, pretty.

She cries and cries and cries. They reach out to touch her; the man smacks their hand aside.  
 _(Some things simply must be done.)_

The woman is dead. They do not regret anything. 

The woman regrets many things.

 _Click,_ goes the sword’s teeth. 

 

\--------------------------------------------------

 

Together they gather the herbs and medicines, sweep the poisons and cures into an apothecary's backpack. The man helps the youth pull it onto their back.

“Why?” they ask again.

“I only ask one thing of you,” the man says. “Free my brethren.”

The youth blinks, stares into the man’s brilliant red eyes. “Why should I?”

“Why shouldn’t you?”

“You killed her.”

“So did you.”

_(When your duty is done, she too will be freed.)_

_Click,_ goes the sword’s teeth.


End file.
